


Perfect Potion

by SilverDraconyx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hogwarts First Year, Love for Learning, Potions Class (Harry Potter), Smart Hermione Granger, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28940154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDraconyx/pseuds/SilverDraconyx
Summary: Almost two months into her first year of school in the wizarding world and Hermione still has trouble making friends. Her desire to learn though has not suffered, so she takes full advantage of their potions assignment today.She might have taken it to an extreme or maybe the prefect that was supposed to watch them was just being a jerk.Either way she is brewing a potion, all alone, which leads to a surprisingly heartfelt conversation with everyone’s least favourite Professor.
Relationships: (beginnings), Hermione Granger & Severus Snape
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23
Collections: Potterverse Prompt Fire





	Perfect Potion

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Potterfire](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Potterfire) collection. 



> For a promt about a Gen Hermione & Severus relationship. It’s not much of a real relationship, more the start of one, but it’s what came to my mind when I read the promt…
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

It was almost two moths since the beginning of the school year. Four since Hermione had gotten her Hogwarts acceptance letter. Before she had met the other children, she had dreamed of finding lots of friends here who were just as eager and excited to learn magic as she was. She had memorised all her schoolbooks to make sure she could keep up with all the wizard born children. 

To her dismay, it had turned out that wizard children were just like all the other children she had met. They never feel like studying and don’t recognize the chance they’ve been given. It seemed to her that they almost forgot how incredible it was that they got to have magic. 

She funnelled her frustration into more studying, which only served to drive the other first years farther away from her, which made her even more frustrated… it was a vicious cycle. Hermione knew she would have to break out of it if she ever wanted to make friends here, but she felt like being stubborn. 

So she’d be damned if she didn’t get this potion perfect. Professor Snape had said this was the most basic potion there is. A pain reliever for headaches that took twenty minutes to make and only used four ingredients: Water, Dittany, Asphodel blossoms and onions. 

“I have cast a spell upon each of your cauldrons,” Professor Snape said. “They should begin to glow when your potion is recognisable and become entirely white when it is perfect.”

Hermione looked around. Some cauldrons were glowing in light blues or greens, including her own. Some had only a light sheen or no light at all. 

“I expect you to make this potion to the best of your abilities, you may take as long as you need,” Professor Snape said. “With the ingredients you have there should be no way any of you could make your cauldrons explode or otherwise harm anyone unless someone is stupid enough to drink from it. Nonetheless, Mr Harvey will supervise you.”

Erik Harvey was a Ravenclaw prefect who seemed nice enough. Percy had told her that he was very apt in potions while they had talked during the welcoming feast. 

“When you’re done, fill a vial and mark it with your name.”

With that, Professor Snape strode out of the classroom and left them to their work. 

Hermione turned back to her potion, it should be finished by now, but the book said it should be a light transparent orange, and hers was definitely more yellow. It was the first batch she had tried, there were 60 more minutes of regular lesson time. She looked around again, some were already filling their vials. Hermione frowned. None of their cauldrons were glowing white. 

“Come on, Harry,” she heard Ron say behind her. 

“Ron, we can at least work until the lesson is over,” Harry responded. 

“But the guy is gone, why not use our free time?”

Hermione focused back on her own work. She would have to start over, so she emptied the cauldron and washed it out in the sinks at the back of the classroom. 

Three tries later the regular lesson time was over and her cauldron was glowing a light yellow. 

The colour of her potion had been right on the last try at least and she had bottled a sample in case she only made it worse, but Hermione was still determined to make her potion perfect. It couldn’t be that hard. 

Freshly ground asphodel blossom leaves the book said. Maybe hers weren’t fresh enough? She had timed how long she had taken to ground them on her last try and this time she would finish them just before adding them into the potion. 

More people were packing up. 

“You coming Hermione?” Lavender asked her. 

She looked up for a moment. Parvati and Lavender were standing next to her table, all packed up and ready to go enjoy the afternoon. She didn’t know if they had managed to perfect their potions, she had tried not to get distracted by the others too much. 

Draco was still working diligently, his cauldron shimmered in light blue, perhaps lighter than her yellow. His goons Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had left an hour ago. The other Slytherins were still there. 

Neville was slouching in his chair defeatedly, his cauldron glowed a deep pink. 

Ron was packing up, while Harry still worked. 

“No,” Hermione answered Lavender. “I’ll see you later.”

The girls shrugged and Hermione quickly tended to her potion, so it wouldn’t be messed up. 

Three more tries and Hermione had begun to become very frustrated. She had done everything perfectly! The exact amount of water, she had even tried to account for drops being left in her measuring cup, grinding the blossom leaves at the last second, timing everything exactly and still her potion wouldn’t be perfect. 

All the Gryffindors had left by now, even most of the Slytherins. Only Draco, Daphne, Hermione and the prefect were left. 

She glanced at the other two. Draco’s light had become an even lighter blue, while Daphne had a very discernible blue. 

“I’ll be finishing up after this one, Daphne,” Draco said. 

“Yeah, I’ll come with you,” she sighed. “I don’t think it’ll get better.”

Hermione gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t give up. 

One batch later, after Draco and Daphne had left, Erik came up to her. 

“Don’t you think that’s enough?” He asked. 

Hermione scowled at her yellow light. 

“Well, it’s getting late and I for one don’t want to miss dinner,” he told her. 

“I’m not done,” she said simply.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Erik said, slight annoyance creeping into his voice. 

“Professor Snape said we can take as long as we need,” Hermione replied. 

“You won’t make it perfect,” he snapped. 

Hermione scowled. 

“Well I am not missing dinner, so good luck on your own.”

He slammed the door as he left. 

Great. Now she was alone. That was never good. If she was alone and something happened to her, nobody could get help. But Professor Snape had said that the ingredients were safe, so she should be fine.

  


* * *

  


Severus was in a terrible mood. He did not wish to know what mischief his students had come up with in the time he was gone. But the curriculum insisted on at least one lesson each year that was unsupervised by a teacher. 

He also did not look forward to the potions he would find, rarely would any of them actually be perfect, even though the students could take all the time they wished. 

He decided to get to it right after dinner and get it out of the way. The other teachers at the head table were gossiping and bragging about their star pupils’ accomplishments. Severus was not. 

Instead he observed the students to see if any of his first year class had managed to get themselves hurt. Contrary to popular opinion he did care whether his students were well. Though he had to admit he especially cared about his Slytherins. 

All of the Slytherin first years showed up to dinner unharmed, as did the Gryffindor… Severus narrowed his eyes as he scanned the hall. 

The know-it-all was missing. The bushy haired Granger girl. Perhaps she was more determined than he gave her credit for. But no, Mr Harvey was already at his table. 

She might have gotten the potion wrong and was crying in a bathroom somewhere. That was something girls did, wasn’t it?

When dinner was over, Miss Granger had still not appeared. Severus could not deny that it was his responsibility to see her unharmed after his own class, but he would be damned before he went to the Gryffindors to ask them. 

Instead he went to Mr Harvey, who was chatting with his friends and needed one of them to vocally point out that Severus was there before he turned his attention to him. 

“I trust there were no incidents?” Severus sneered. 

“Of course not,” he said. 

“Everyone made it out okay?” Severus pressed. 

“Yes… well one of the girls didn’t want to leave for dinner,” the boy shrugged. 

“Really?” Severus asked. “You shouldn’t have thrown her out, they were to be given as long as they wanted.”

The boy turned red. 

“I don’t suppose you know where she is now?” Severus sighed. 

“Last I saw her she was still working on that potion.”

Severus froze. He’d already made to leave but now he turned back to the boy with an icy stare. 

“What!?” He sharply. 

“She didn’t want to leave, but we’d have missed dinner,” Mr Harvey said quietly. 

He had left her, on her own, in the potions classroom! On her own! No one would be able to get help if anything happened. Nothing should happen, it was a harmless potion, but that was not the point. The boy was a prefect and the most promising potions student of his year. That’s why he had been picked to watch over the class.

Severus turned and strode towards his classroom at a fast pace. He could deal with Mr Harvey later, now he needed to make sure that Miss Granger was alright. 

He arrived at the classroom quickly and nearly sighed in relief when he found her still diligently working over her cauldron. 

“Don’t breathe in the fumes,” he said instead. This particular potion would have harmless fumes, but leaning over ones cauldron like that was a bad habit.

Her head snapped around to him. “Professor Snape.”

“Miss Grabger. You should not have stayed here on your own,” he said. 

“But I wanted to make the potion correctly,” she answered. 

“Do you know how dangerous it is to learn anything magical on you own?” He asked her, only slightly angry. “It is always risky and you can’t get help if you are alone.”

“I know,” Hermione admitted. “But I told Mr Harvey that you said we could work on it as long as we want and that I would keep working. It’s not my fault he left anyway.”

Severus sighed. “No it isn’t, but it was still irresponsible.”

“What should I have done then?” Hermione challenged. 

“You should have given in and packed up,” he said irritatedly. It was obvious to him at least. 

“But I wanted to make the potion perfect!” Hermione complained. 

Severus looked pointedly at the light yellow glow of her cauldron. He knew he always said that they should strive to make their potions perfect and on some level he expected the really committed ones to not give up, but… “Isn’t that good enough?”

Hermione shook her head. “It’s not perfect,” she insisted. “And I’ve been trying to figure out what I do wrong.”

“It’s good enough to be used,” Severus told her. 

“But that’s not what learning potions is about,” she argued. 

“I suppose not,” he said. “Alright, pack up. I’ll take your commitment into account when grading.”

“But Professor!” Hermione said. “You said we could have all the time we need, can’t I just try one more time?”

“No,” he insisted. He had expected her to be happy to finally leave. “It’s late, you already missed dinner. You should go to your dorm and hope your housemates saved you some food.”

“But…” Hermione began, but didn’t really know how to argue against her Professor. “I want to learn,” she said quietly. 

“Then come to class,” Severus said exaggeratedly.

“But…” she licked her lips nervously. She knew what she wanted to say next, she’d been thinking about it at length. But she didn’t know how angry Professor Snape would be. “We don’t really learn anything in class.”

“What?” Severus snapped, taken aback. 

“All we do is read or potions book and brew potions after the instructions,” she said, keeping her voice clear and steady. Now that she had started it, she wanted to make her point. “And we know when we mess up, because then the potion fails, but we don’t really know what or why we messed up.”

Severus wanted to be angry, but in truth he knew that she was right. He didn’t like teaching and he didn’t like the students so he didn’t put an effort into it. He was only here because of Dumbledore after all. “You’re saying my teaching style is bad,” he said. 

Hermione became very uncomfortable suddenly. She didn’t like criticising teachers. But it _was_ what she was saying, so she nodded. 

“Potions is a dangerous subject and I can’t let students experiment with it,” Severus scowled. “Anyhow, none of the dunderheads actually want to learn anything.” 

“You don’t know that!” Hermione exclaimed. “I want to learn. And I know that Neville wants to learn too, he even asked me to tutor him, but I couldn’t really help him, because I don’t really know anything about potions, I only have the books.”

“Longbottom could never learn to make a decent potion,” Severus scoffed. 

Now Hermione got angry. “How would you know that? You never even tried to teach him!”

“You’re saying he would learn to brew a potion if only my classes were better?” Severus scowled.

“Well he won’t learn it this way, that’s for sure.”

“I can’t tailor my class to one specific student or it would be too slow for the ones who are actually capable,” Severus argued.

“Even Draco didn’t manage a perfect potion,” Hermione pointed out. “You’re not just leaving Neville behind, you’re leaving all of us behind.”

Severus wouldn’t admit it. He wouldn’t. He liked the way he taught his class: minimal contact with any dunderheads and brats. But damn it, she had a point.

He remembered how he had despised teachers who didn’t care about the students and who didn’t seem to want to teach at all. 

“I’ll think about it,” he said sharply and waved a hand at her dismissively.

Hermione thought her heart stopped for a moment there. Then she began to smile. “So… my potion?”

“I said I’ll _think_ about it,” Severus told her. She was beginning to annoy him again. But there was one tip he could give her. “See if Mrs Pince has A Theory of Magical Herbs by Algol Black.” 

Hermione nodded eagerly. 

“Now go to your dorm,” Severus said sternly. 

She nodded again and began packing up, but not before carefully marking her best vial of the potion and placing it on Professor Snape’s desk.

When she was gone, Severus called a house elf and told him to bring a plate of sandwiches to Gryffindor tower for the girl. Then he resolved to talk to Filius and Minerva about Mr Harvey’s behaviour and a suitable punishment. Personally he thought at least a month of detention and his prefect badge being taken away, but he supposed the others would be more lenient. They liked their students after all. The only thing he knew, was that Mr Harvey would have to do a lot better in potions if he wanted to maintain his grade.


End file.
